Patrick Andy blends Gospel / Jazz / Latin with his native rhythms from Madagascar. A Patrick Andy Band live is a unique listening experience that’s guaranteed to bring Joy to both musicians who are always in search of intricate-different stuff, and to non-musicians who just wanna enjoy good music.

REGGIE YOUNG APPEARING WITH TYRONE BIRKETT GROUP

Reggie Young and Tyrone Birkett infused are the perfect blend of jazz / gospel & soul. Offering a musical presentation of the journey African Americans and all races have made from history to now, this music brings a fresh idea to what jazz and gospel is all about.

2. Mamak Khadem

Called “one of the wonders of world trance music” by the Los Angeles Times, Mamak Khadem draws from her roots in the ancient poetry and music of the Persian masters, creating a bold and revolutionary new sound. Co-founder and longtime lead vocalist of the acclaimed world fusion ensemble Axiom of Choice, the powerful Tehran-born singer has created a vibrant body of work that she hopes will inspire a deeper appreciation for cultural diversity in general, and for Persian arts in particular at a time when the great beauty of Iran’s culture is too often eclipsed by its present-day politics.

The classically trained Khadem has studied her art extensively in both Iran and the United States. Her latest work, A Window To Color, is a conceptual album of eight original compositions inspired by the poetry of Iran’s late, gifted poet and artist, Sohrab Sepehri. Her expressive, moving voice has been heard on numerous film and television scores. Khadem tours and performs globally, and resides in Los Angeles, where she teaches classical Persian music and conducts workshops which incorporate singing, meditation and movement.

3. JEREMY SISKIND TRIO CD RELEASE FINGER-SONGWRITER

Pianist/composer Jeremy Siskind celebrates the release of his latest recording, Finger-Songwriter (available on www.BJURecords.com). On Finger- Songwriter Siskind (the Cafe’s featured artist for this month’s “Spotlight on New Talent” series) explores the ways we deal with loss. The opening vocal line, “I’d like to learn how to lose,” suggests the emotional gamut and variety of human conditions that Siskind explores through words and music – from nostalgia, to denial, to madness, and eventually to resolve, optimism and hope. The CD, and this evening will feature vocalist Nancy Harms and multi-reedist Lucas Pino.

4. Spoek Mathambo

Spoek Mathambo makes the Afro-futurists look old school. With the arrival of his second album, Father Creeper, he’s one man building up an army to make his creative visions a reality, rewriting any artistic laws in his way.

Johannesburg’s Spoek Mathambo (real name: Nthato Mokgata) first hotwired our world with a series of collaborative projects—Sweat X, Playdoe—that placed his smart, dirty vocals on top of electro-rap bangers that activated dancefloors across the globe. Things went darker and deeper with his 2010 debut album, Mshini Wam (translation: “bring me my machine”), a record which took Spoek’s love affair with South African culture and his coined “township tech” as a starting point. As always, he pulled those influences in a direction all his own (think: a pitched-down wobble-house cover of Joy Division’s “She’s Lost Control”). Mathambo topped things off with a grip of visually thrilling videos depicting a fresh-to-death urban gothic vibe, and months of touring across US, Europe, and South America.

6. Hafez Modirzadeh

For over two decades, composer/saxophonist/theorist Hafez Modirzadeh has developed his pioneering “chromodal” concept, a cross-cultural musical approach developed from his own American jazz and Iranian dastgah heritages. He has published extensively on the subject while developing alternative performance techniques to adapt the saxophone to the Persian tuning system. Dr. Modirzadeh studied the dastgah repertoire extensively with Iranian violinist Mahmoud Zoufonoun, followed by a stint at New England Conservatory to study saxophone with Joe Allard and musical concepts with George Russell. He received his Masters from UCLA and his Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University. He was twice named an NEA Jazz Fellow (1989, 1991) and was granted a Fulbright to work with Gnawan and Flamenco musicians in Morocco and Andalucia in 2005-06, which resulted in his latest CD, “Bemsha Alegria” (2007, Disques Chromodal). Dr. Modirzadeh is currently a full-time professor of World Culture in Music at San Francisco State University where he directs the World Music and Dance Program. He has performed internationally over the last 20 years with such musicians as Don Cherry, Zakir Hussein, Steve Lacy, Oliver Lake, George Lewis, Peter Apfelbaum, William Lowe, James Newton, Wadada Leo Smith, Omar Sosa, Royal Hartigan, and many Asian and Asian American musical artists such as Fred Ho, Miya Masaoka, Liu Chi Chao, Danongan Kalanduyan, Mark Izu, Anthony Brown, Akira Tana, and Kenny Endo. Perhaps the highlight of Dr. Modirzadeh’s performance career was when he was asked by Ornette Coleman to play with his Quartet at the San Francisco Jazz Festival in 2007. His recorded output as a leader include: Bemsha Alegria (2007, Disques Chromodal); Dandelion (2003, Disques Chromodal); By Any Mode Necessary (1999, X-Dot 25); The Mystery of Sama (1998, AIR); The Peoples’ Blues (1996, X-Dot 25); and In Chromodal Discourse (1993, Asian Improv).

He’s playing music from his new CD Post-Chromodal. The Line up is: Hafez Modirzadeh (sax), Amir ElSaffar (tr), Ken Filiano (b), Vijay Iyer (p) and Royal Hartigan (dr).

Abdou Mboup was born in the small town of Kebemer, Senegal to a family of oral historians and musicians. Having studied traditional drumming under the tutelage of his family, Abdou soon became a key figure in the development of the Mbalax style (Senegalese dance music). In fact in the early 1970s, he was the first musician to incorporate various traditional instruments into Senegalese popular music. A few years later, he joined the renewned Dakar based group Xalam, which he toured Europe and Africa under the patronage of south African trumpeter, Hugh Masekela. By the 1980s, Abdou was living and working in Paris, There he attracted the attention of the American trumpeter Jon Hassell, with whom he recorded and performed at the 1982 Womad festival in London, England. Soon therafter, he became the percussionist of Eddy Louiss’s band with whom he toured and recorded for the next ten years. Concurrently, Abdou taught percussion at Loisirs et Culture music school in France and founded the jazz fusion band Sixun. In the years to come, Abdou’s career has only expanded. He has toured and recorded in Africa, Europe, America, Southeastern Asia, Japan, Nepal and India. From the 1990s until now, Abdou has written original composition for Jean Luc Ponty, Pharoah Sanders Tom Tom Club and Randy Weston.

8. NASS GNAWA

Nass Gnawa is the Moroccan trio Brahim Fribgane, Hassan Ben Jafar and Said Damir. They play music of the Gnawa people who are Afro-Moroccan descendants of slaves from the south. Their mystical brotherhoods and their music combine North and Black African elements.